Tuesday, January 17, 2012

PBS: Fukushima Only 10% of Radiation of Chernobyl

This is an outright lie that Fukushima only released 10% of the radiation released by Chernobyl.

One reactor was involved at Chernobyl, while at least 3 were involved at Fukushima plus at least one burning spent fuel pool. Fukushima is ongoing. Chernobyl is contained (at least presently).

The propagandist are able to lie about releases because the official data were revised so many times and hide important omissions and caveats.

For example, the Wall Street Journal reported that “Japan
Mis-stated radiation” (Sep 9, 2011 p. A14): “The Japanese
government initially underestimated radiation releases from the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear plant, in part because of untimely rain, and so exposed people
unnecessarily, a report released this week by a government research institute
says”

Furthermore, the propagandists can simply state that the total amount of radiation released from Fukushima was less because they only count the radiation released in the first 5 days of the disaster.

MAJIA HERE: I'm not going to do a systematic analysis right now because its late and I need to go to bed. However, I am going to paste some data from my notes that problematize the trivializing comparison made by PBS

FIRST HERE IS A STUDY THAT CALLS INTO QUESTION JAPAN'S OFFICIAL DATA. It relies exclusively on data gathered in the US from the earliest days of the disaster only.

[Excerpted] …. The latest report from the
Japanese government, published in June, says that the plant released 1.5 × 1016 bequerels
of caesium-137, an isotope with a 30-year half-life that is responsible for
most of the long-term contamination from the plant2. A far larger amount of xenon-133, 1.1 × 1019 Bq,
was released, according to official government estimates.

The new study challenges those
numbers. On the basis of its reconstructions, the team claims that the accident
released around 1.7 × 1019 Bq of xenon-133, greater than the
estimated total radioactive release of 1.4 × 1019 Bq from
Chernobyl. The fact that three reactors exploded in the Fukushima accident
accounts for the huge xenon tally, says De Geer.///The new model shows that Fukushima released
3.5 × 1016 Bq caesium-137, roughly twice the official government
figure, and half the release from Chernobyl. The higher number is obviously
worrying, says De Geer, although ongoing ground surveys are the only way to
truly establish the public-health risk….

[EXCERPTED]"Japan's leading business journal Toyo Keizai has
published an article by Hokkaido Cancer Center director
Nishio Masamichi, a radiation treatment specialist. The piece, entitled “The Problem of Radiation
Exposure Countermeasures for the Fukushima Nuclear Accident: Concerns for the
Present Situation”, was published on June 27

Former Minister for Internal
Affairs Haraguchi Kazuhiro has alleged that radiation monitoring station data
was actually three decimal places greater than the numbers released to the
public. If this is true, it constitutes a “national crime”, in Nishio’s words.
He follows with, “Giving us the truth once is much more important than saying
‘hang in there Japan!’ a million times.”

SECOND JAPAN HAS NOT EVACUATED NOR DECONTAMINATED, LEADING ONE TO BELIEVE IT IS BECAUSE THEY SIMPLY CANNOT REACT EFFECTIVELY TO THE DEGREE OF CONTAMINATION

“At least one billion becquerels a day of
radiation continue to leak from Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant after the March
earthquake and tsunami.”
“Experts say that the total amount of radiation leaked will exceed amounts
released from Chernobyl, making Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster in
history.”

Fukushima
is Worse than Chernobyl – on Global Contamination Partial Japanese Text here Asia pacific Journalhttp://japanfocus.org/-Chris-Busby/35632011, july 8 Chris Busby Interview by Norimatsu Satoko and Narusawa Muneo
"Fukushima disaster involved a lot more material than Chernobyl where only
200 tons of fuel was involved. "I believe that in the explosions at
Fukushima Daiichi, huge amounts of spent fuel were blown sky high. The ground
contamination out to 100 km at Fukushima is worse than Chernobyl, the dose
rates higher. And Fukushima has contaminated Tokyo with 35 million people. The
population of the 200 km radius is also enormous, about 10 million. Most of the
Chernobyl stuff fell away from big population centers. Luckily it went north
and west and not to Kiev which is south. Fukushima is still boiling its
radionuclides all over Japan. Chernobyl went up in one go. So Fukushima is
worse…."

[excerpted] "How
much radioactive materials have been released from the plant?" asked Dr
Tatsuhiko Kodama, a professor at the Research Centre for Advanced Science and
Technology and Director of the University of Tokyo's Radioisotope Centre, in a
July 27 speech to the Committee of Health, Labour and Welfare at Japan's House
of Representatives.
"The government and TEPCO have not reported the total amount of the
released radioactivity yet," said Kodama, who believes things are far
worse than even the recent detection of extremely high radiation levels at the
plant....

“Kodama’s centre, using 27 facilities to measure radiation across the country,
has been closely monitoring the situation at Fukushima – and their findings are
alarming. According to Dr. Kodama, the total amount of radiation released over
a period of more than five months from the ongoing Fukushima nuclear disaster
is the equivalent to more than 29 ‘Hiroshima-type atomic bombs’ and the amount
of uranium released is ‘equivalent to 20’ Hiroshima bombs”
-------------------------------

From
Kilotons to Millisieverts: Japan’s Nuclear Legacy. August 9 2011 Truth Dig. Amy
Goodman
“In recent weeks, radiation levels have spiked at the Fukushima nuclear power
reactors in Japan, with recorded levels of 10,000 millisieverts per hour
(mSv/hr) at one spot. This is the number reported by the reactor’s discredited
owner, Tokyo Electric Power Co., although that number is simply as high as the
Geiger counters go. In other words, the radiation levels are literally off the
charts. Exposure to 10,000 millisieverts for even a brief time would be fatal,
with death occurring within weeks…”

1 comment:

(Below is post from a permaculture forum trying to find natural solutions for Japanese nuclear contamination, possibly using 2011 proposal from US fungi expert Dr Paul Stamets ... see full thread at http://forums.permaculture.org.au/showthread.php?10987-Paul-Stamets-Fungi-to-the-rescue-in-Japan!/page3)

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Japanese researchers are starting to quantify the contamination. The following press release from a Wall Street Journal website of 25 Jan 2012 paints a picture that perhaps the contamination is not as intense as we might have expected???

(Can someone comment on these studies? I cannot find more detail on their availability.)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/per...sis-2012-01-25

The press release includes only a brief description of results from Fukushima University and Radioisotope Center of University of Tokyo as follows:

-- Determining that uranium and plutonium contamination was extremely limited, in the vicinity of the reactors, and not widespread

-- While radioactive iodine is completely gone from affected sites, the bulk of remaining contamination comprises long half-life cesium-134 and -137

-- Cleaning up radioactive soil depends on varied terrain -- and requires different protocols depending on variables such as abundance of site vegetation, and other related factors

About Me

I am a Professor at a large public university. I study political economy and biopolitics (the politics of life). My interests are diverse but are broadly concerned with economic, social and environmental justice. I have published 5 books: Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (2016); Fukusima and the Privatization of Risk (2013); Constructing Autism (2005); Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008/2011); Governing Childhood (2010).
I also participated in an edited collection on Fukushima: Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization (2014).